The FHSAA board voted unanimously Monday to allow all lacrosse teams to participate in district tournaments for spring 2021 lacrosse, regardless of record, number of games played, or ranking.
The virtual meeting held via Zoom yesterday contained a proposal from FHSAA Associate Executive Director Justin Harrison, specifying, “For flag football, boy and girls lacrosse, boys volleyball, boys and girls water polo, 2 different pieces to this one. One is to allow, if schools choose, for all teams to advance to the district tournament.”
There were some questions from other board members, mostly concerning schools purposefully holding players out of regular season games, then bringing them back in once district tournaments begin. Those concerns were voiced by two board members, but those members ultimately voted in favor for the proposal.
The stated purpose of this rule change is to allow schools to participate in the post-season regardless of games played, as many schools have been negatively impacted by the COVID landscape. The board discussed many schools having to suffer through limited games due to contract tracing, either in their school or their opponents’ schools. By removing the minimum game requirement to enter post-season play for spring, the move is intended to mimic the procedure used during fall and winter sports so scheduling issues will no longer restrict schools from participating in district tournaments.
Mr. Harrison also proposed, “to seed the tournament using the power rankings we use for the other team sports.”
This change was previously approved by schools for a later date, but issues with the pandemic have moved the start date up to this year. But while the spring 2021 season will utilize both power rank seeding as well as no minimum game requirement, the only portion that will be used after 2021 will be the utilization of power rankings for seeding. After this season, the rules will return to only allowing the top 4 teams to participate in district tournament play.
There have not been details mentioned yet on how district playoffs will be scheduled or handled. For districts with an odd number of teams, will the top seed receive a bye? Will the bottom two seeds play for the last spot? We hope to learn those details soon and will report them when we do.
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